THE BEATLES 1 AND 1+ : The look and sound of a culture-changing band

Graham Reid | Nov 6, 2015 | 5 min read

Oddly enough, Elvis Presley's gold
Cadillac was, if you will follow this thread, responsible for the
rise of video clips.

In 1966 when the Beatles -- weary of
touring and battered by the deafening screams of Beatlemania – decided
to pull back from live appearances, they found a way of having a
presence for fans while they recorded and enjoyed some rare downtime.

“We'd read a report somewhere,”
Paul McCartney would say later, “that said, 'Elvis Presley has sent
his gold plated Cadillac out on tour'. And we thought that was the
greatest idea ever because we'd been touring and sending ourselves
out. We thought that was a really good idea, you stay at home and
send your car.

“[Elvis' car] did go on tour, people
would come and pay money and wander around it like it was an exhibit,
like Madame Tussaud's or whatever. And he didn't have to be there.

“At the time in the Sixties when we
were thinking of doing Sgt Peppers [released in mid '67] and we
didn't want to tour that idea suddenly sounded really nifty. But we
hadn't got gold plated Cadillacs, we don't do that stuff . . . but
we could send a record out on tour.”

And the way they did that was to make
promotional films to go out with the records.

As George Harrison said, “The mania
made it pretty difficult to get around, and out of convenience we
decided we were not going to go into the TV studios to promote our
records so much because it was too much of a hassle.

“We thought we'd go and make our own
little films and put them on TV.

“So we started getting a film crew
and shooting. There are a number of those films. I think the first
proper ones we did were Paperback Writer and Rain [mid '66] in
Chiswick House. They were the forerunners of videos.

“Once we actually went on an Ed
Sullivan show with just a clip. It was great because we really conned
the Sullivan show into promoting our new single by sending in the
film clip.

“These days obviously everybody does
that – it's part of the promotion for a single – so I suppose in
a way we invented MTV.”

In fact, the Beatles – being so
famous and having spent their early years doing so much live
television – were the best documented group of the early Sixties.
And that continued when they were filmed live in concert, on the
road, for documentaries and then in the film clips they set up.

Some of those television shows and
promotional clips can be found by time-consuming searches on-line,
but now a swag of them plus previously unseen films and footage –
27 films in all – are being released along with the re-mastered
reissue of their 2000 compilation CD The Beatles;1 which pulls
together all their chart-topping UK singles.

And for the serious older fan – or
those who missed the phenomenon and are curious about the larger
picture -- there is also an expanded edition The Beatles; 1+
which comes with two DVD or Blu-ray discs (plus a 124-page book, both
versions with audio commentary options by Paul McCartney).

Not only is this a journey through some
of the smartest and most durable pop of the 20th century,
but the films put the Beatles, their fans and the cultural climate
of the era (go-go dancing dolly-birds for Daytripper, the serious
psychedelic imagery coming later) back under the microscope.

Here's the remarkable musical story
told in footage from a black and white version of Love Me Do filmed live in
August 63 (with footage from the BBC doco The Mersey Sound) and a
performance in Paris of A Hard Day's Night (French fans more reserved
than American screamers) through Eight Days a Week at Shea Stadium
with footage cut in from a long out-of-print doco of that legendary
concert, (the first outdoor stadium show in rock) to songs
accompanied by footage from Yellow Submarine, the David Frost Show
and their break-up film Let It Be among other sources.

This is pop history in sound and
vision.

And the film footage has undergone
major digital restoration and enhancement so it all looks as fresh as
yesterday, as crisp the re-mastered music.

What also comes through – especially
in the 23 additional clips on the Beatles; 1+ set (which would
be anyone's preferred option) is the careless disregard the Beatles
had for miming along. When others, the rebellious Rolling Stones
included, did their best to lip-synch for the cameras the Beatles –
John Lennon and McCartney especially – treated the whole idea with
amused disdain.

And when marijuana kicked in there are
times when Lennon and McCartney could barely contain their laughter,
as on the hilariously stoned non-mime for We Can Work It Out, which
makes sense when you see the “sheet music” on Lennon's electric
piano.

There's much to enjoy, be amused by and
question across these groundbreaking films and candid footage.

See Mick'n'Keith mingling with
classical musicians wearing penis-noses for the footage accompany A
Day in the Life.

See Brian Epstein fussing around in his
NEMS record shop in footage slipped into the new clip for Love Me Do.

Why would they be so artfully filmed
eating fish'n'chips out of a newspaper and making chip-butties for
the clip to accompany I Feel Fine?

Just how did McCartney chip that front
tooth some time in early '65 and why didn't he see a dentist? (Oh,
that's right, they did go to a dentist . . . and he gave them LSD).

So how come the unsmiling Harrison
(even when obviously stoned) got a reputation for being . . .
unsmiling?

Does George really say, “John smells
like shit” just as the bruisingly distorted version of Revolution
kicks off ?

Hard to believe but half a century on,
the Beatles still have the capacity to entertain.

And when it comes to music with
pictures, here was the band which created the notion of iconic images
(collarless jackets and polo-neck sweaters of the early Sixties to tinted
shades then retro-chic suits by the end of the decade) and everyone
from Noel Gallagher to Justin Bieber and that guy from Glee copped
Lennon's mid '65 hairstyle.

And they managed to make memorable hit
singles along the way.

A whopping 27 of them – now with
complete with evocative and often exciting films – topping the
charts in just seven, culture-changing extraordinary years.

Who knew that Elvis' gold-plated
Cadillac going on tour would have such a profound influence?

There is more on the Beatles at Elsewhere starting here. Take a deep breath.

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

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